Groublogpon – The Serious Blog of Groupon

Nearly 400 people submitted video applications to Live Off Groupon, and all but seven were lucky enough to not be selected as finalists.

Six of the remaining seven will now be subjected to the even more unbearable disappointment of flying to Chicago to be rejected after an in-person interview.

And one person will endure the pinnacle of all suffering: attempting to live off nothing but Groupons for one year. read more »

Why does Groupon work? Because as cool as it is for customers, it’s even better for the featured businesses. We feel so lucky to serve as a bridge between great merchants and great customers; here’s an email we received yesterday from Amy Stone of Jady Images, a Miami photography studio we recently featured. read more »

UPDATE: We’ve been asked to kill this blog post while we attempt to reach a resolution and put this thing behind us. We didn’t start Groupon so we could spend our time fighting with lawyers, so we’re happy to try and end this and get back to making cool stuff for our customers. We’ll update here when there’s more to report.

In the meantime, I’ll just remind everyone that it has always been our policy to refund customers if for any reason they’re unsatisfied with Groupon.

2/4/2010, CHICAGO - The revolutionary collective-buying website Groupon already enhances people’s lives by offering a daily deal on the best local goods, services and cultural events. Now we’ll be going one step further – from enhancing someone’s life, to dominating it.

Groupon is proud to announce the LIVE OFF GROUPON challenge. One chosen online applicant (call him or her “The Groupawn”) will be challenged to live exclusively off Groupons for an entire year, blogging regularly about their experiences.

The Groupawn will be required to put their savings in escrow, cut up their credit cards, and surrender the keys to their home and loved ones. They will be stripped of the trappings of routine, as well as their clothing, and released back into the world in a suit made entirely out of Groupons and a few electronic gadgets. If they can successfully live exclusively off of an unlimited supply of Groupons for ONE ENTIRE YEAR they will earn an apology stipend of $100,000. read more »

I’m frequently asked how Groupon chooses which businesses to feature.

Variety is obviously important—part of what makes Groupon fun is the mix of business types and neighborhoods. And of course, we make sure we’re offering the best price out there. But most importantly, we focus on quality. We’re extremely proud of the fact that our customers discover and try new things simply because they’re featured on Groupon. We’ve earned that trust by strictly adhering to rules we set for choosing our merchant partners. Every business we feature goes through a vetting process, when our team of 30 writers, researchers, fact checkers, and editors scour online and offline media for an objective consensus that the business is respectable. read more »

Thanks to all of our friends who continue to send in photos of their experiences redeeming Groupons. Competition is heating up – we received more entries last month than ever before!

Some exciting contest news: now you can win $100 in sweet Groupon credit for your video entries, too. We will pick one video and one photo each month and post the winners here.

This month’s photo winner is Shirley of Washington D.C., taken as she visited the ICE! exhibit at Gaylord National. Even the horse looks cold.

A Groupon Trip to ICE! at Gaylord National, Washington D.C.

Shirley writes:

The entire exhibit was refrigerated at 9 degrees Fahrenheit, but we had so much fun that the temperature didn’t matter. The highlight was going down the slides built of solid ice!

You’ve got to visit our Flickr stream to see our favorite runners-up, including one family’s trip to trapeze class, a man who truly knows how to kill time at work and the best foot photo to grace the internet.

Do you want to win $100? Send your best videos and photos to pictures@groupon.com and don’t forget – entries must include the Groupon certificate!

It was the perfect mix of dancing, libations and the releasing of souls at the Groupon Customer Appreciation Party “The Grouponing,” held last Thursday night at Carnivale Restaurant in Chicago. read more »

We were on the brink of launching our first hyperglobal deal (70% off a panculturally-designed spoon, flashlight, and sword combination guaranteed to solve at least one problem in any country), when our trusty mob of consumers spoke up with a better idea. As usual, we let the mob determine our business model, and so we’ve decided to pull a 540 (a 180 plus extra physical comedy) and instead go hyperlocal.

We begin today in Washington D.C. by expanding our coverage into Northern Virginia and Montgomery County. D.C. subscribers will be able to choose which region they would like to see as their main feature and the other nearby deals will be displayed less prominently in the daily email.

Eventually, we have grand plans to offer nanobiological deals, offering more deals inside your body, but first we we’ll rolling out regions for L.A., New York, Chicago, and some of the other places our largest consumer mobs call home. Once more areas are available in your city, you’ll be able to change your primary region at any time. With unbeatable deals even closer to home and multiple features in neighboring areas, Groupon will save you money on local activities and on the gas it takes to get there. That’s why we’ve offered celebrity Matthew McConnaughey to recite our new hyperlocal tagline “Groupon hyperlocal deals will save the economy, the environment, and you!” in an upcoming hyperlocal television commercial to air in Northern Virginia and Montgomery County as soon as McConnaughey can master the hyperlocal accents of those respected regions.